ITV has instructed a lawyer to carry out a review of the facts surrounding Phillip Schofield’s relationship with a younger colleague following his exit from This Morning.
As ITV attempts to get a grip on a scandal that has dominated UK newspaper front pages for more than a week, employees were told about the review on Wednesday by Chief People Officer David Osborn.
In an email, seen by Deadline, Osborn said ITV wants to “establish the facts” and consider where it can improve its processes. He said the work would be carried out “as quickly as possible.”
Separately, ITV CEO Carolyn McCall wrote to ministers to say that barrister Jane Mulcahy KC “will review our records and talk to people involved.”
ITV ordered the review after Schofield confessed to his relationship with a young member of the This Morning team following years of concealing and lying about their tryst.
ITV investigated rumors about the relationship in 2020, but Schofield — one of the UK’s best-known television presenters — categorically and repeatedly denied the allegations.
It was only after his friendship with co-presenter Holly Willoughby disintegrated and he left This Morning earlier this month that he confessed to the relationship in an extraordinary mea culpa to The Daily Mail.
Schofield said he had shown “very bad judgement” over the consensual relationship with the runner, which he described as “unwise, but not illegal.”
ITV sources have told Deadline that the relationship was an open secret at ITV and questioned why the broadcaster was unable to get to the bottom of the issue in 2020.
Schofield met his one-time partner when he was 15, but ITV’s Osborn clarified in an email today that the young man was 20 when he was first employed on This Morning. The individual was promoted to Loose Women, another ITV daytime show, in 2019 and left the company two years later.
In her letter to Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer and Ofcom CEO Melanie Dawes, McCall said: “The relationships we have with those we work with are based on trust. Phillip made assurances to us and his agency which he now acknowledges were untrue and we feel badly let down.”
She added: “We have now instructed Jane Mulcahy KC (Blackstone Chambers) to carry out an external review to establish the facts. She will review our records and talk to people involved. This work will also consider our relevant processes and policies and whether we need to change or strengthen any.”
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